Competing in the Open Track Challenge, Day 1

Spring Mountain [Pahrump]

A very successful first day. We used some psychological warfare to let everyone know FM was in the event - and it worked like a charm. The first session saw Track Dog [with Rick Weldon behind the wheel] run down and pass a fast Lotus 340R. This caused much celebration, and was almost matched by the relief when the oil smoking problem was finally diagnosed and fixed. The next session saw us run a bit low on gas and the Elise got past. In the last session, Bill was able to run away from a Porsche 911 on the front straight while attempting to wave him by. Whoops.

The end result has us either second or third in the class, with a huge gap to fourth. In fact, we'd be in second or third place in the Unlimited 1 class, behind the Ferrari F40!

Track time! You get an idea here of what the OTC is all about. A vintage racer MGB followed by a Lotus Motorsport Elise and tailed by a rally-prepped VW. Not your typical mix.
We were having really bad smoking problems on the first session. We realized this was the larger crank pumping oil up into the cylinders under hard left corners. We fixed it by draining a quart of oil out of the sump. The Accusump ensures that we won't get a dry pickup. This worked beautifully - it wasn't the Total Seal rings!
The Martian dune buggy is a Lotus 340R. It's a very fast car driven by a very fast driver and sponsored by Eibach. This is part of our main competition, and at Pahrump it was almost exactly as fast as we were around the course.
All the Miatas are clustered around the FM trailer like minnows around the mothership. This FM2 system was installed last week. Bill does a bit of idle tuning.
Dan Scolnick on the track.
Our toughest competition. The Elise is a very fast car.
If you see this in your rearview, get out of the way!
Whoops. One of the M Coupes took an off-track excursion, I don't think he'll be back this week.